would be yours,” my uncle said as he stood with his hands in his slacks pockets.
“I doubt I’m qualified for that,” I argued.
“It’s not overly demanding, and they’d train you. Besides, you wouldn’t have to stay forever, and it would get my big brother off your back until you could find something you really enjoyed.” People said my uncle was a shark of an attorney, but he’d never been anything but loving with me. Then again, I was the only female on their side in about four generations. I was a little spoiled.
That was probably one of the reasons my dad was so hard on me. Deep in my heart, I knew he wanted what was best for me, while wanting me to earn my own way in the world. Because God knew if it was up to the rest of his family, I’d be a pampered, smothered princess.
Thinking about it for a few minutes, I finally nodded. “Okay. Thank you, Uncle Simon. That would be great.”
He knew I had zero interest in my father’s network security company, much to my father’s disappointment.
“I’ll text you where to go and when.”
“Perfect.” Relief poured through me.
And that’s how my life started to fall apart.
“LOUD”—Motionless In White
September—Training Camp
We hit the ice for the first time as a team since the season ended and it was like coming home. We’d had our physicals yesterday, and today we were in skates. We had our first preseason game in only four days.
“God, I missed this,” I said to McGregor as my blades cut across the rink for the first time this season. The scrape of metal on ice echoed in the air. It was music in its purest form.
“Hey, hey, boys! School’s back in session!” Halvorson, the team captain, yelled across the ice. Everyone laughed as we took turns slapping the puck around and warming up. I hoped he’d gotten over whatever chip he had on his shoulder when it came to me.
I laughed as McGregor jokingly pulled a figure skating move, and I copied him but flipped him off as I did it. Several of us had roots in figure skating, even though a lot of guys wouldn’t admit it. My dad swore it helped with agility and speed. I, for one, believed him.
“Enough of the fairy footwork,” grumbled Beck, our goaltender.
“You’re just jealous that you can barely move in your sumo getup,” teased McGregor with a laugh before he took a shot. Beck caught it with a loud “thunk” as the puck slammed into his glove.
“I can move fast enough to stop your sorry ass from getting the biscuit in the net,” he said with a wide grin from behind his birdcage. He flipped it back out onto the ice. It was all ribbing, because we knew it took every single one of us to make a strong team. Though I’d become more friendly with certain players on the team since my trade, no single person carried everyone, and we all loved the game.
I’d been playing hockey since I was old enough to hold a stick. Without hockey, I honestly didn’t know if I could breathe. I loved the game that much.
Unfortunately, I feel like it destroyed my parents’ marriage.
Maybe that’s not completely true, but it played into it. Cooper and I both played hockey as little kids. We wanted to be just like our dad. Mom and Dad toted us to game after game. Then Cooper’s interest branched off into motorcycles. He was flat track racing professionally by the time he was thirteen and I was eleven.
How did that split our parents up? Well, neither of them wanted to tell us no. Dad traveled with and homeschooled me, while Mom did the same for Cooper. The two seasons overlapped a little, but it still didn’t exactly allow for a lot of time spent together. Because though we spent off-seasons together, there was always an agenda—an end goal. Practice never ended for either of us.
“Nice play, Kosinski! Nice play!” Coach yelled from the side as my apple to Duncan allowed him to land it between the poles with a wicked wrist shot.
The scrape of blades on the ice, the clash of bodies against the boards, the crack of the stick hitting the puck, that was what I lived for. All of it. Every nuance, every play, every moment.
Hockey. Was. Life.
“Go go go go!” I heard my team captain yelling as we went through our drills. Sweat dripped from my head as I repeated the